Researchers Say Molybdenite Could Replace Silicon in Chips
Scientists at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) claim to have built an integrated circuit that uses molybdenite instead of silicon.
The researchers believe that molybdenite can surpass the physical limits of silicon in terms of miniaturization, electricity consumption, and mechanical flexibility.
"The main advantage of MoS2 is that it allows us to reduce the size of transistors, and thus to further miniaturize them," said Andras Kis, director at the Laboratory of Nanoscale Electronics and Structures (LANES) at EPFL. "It has not been possible up to this point to make layers of silicon less than two nanometers thick, because of the risk of initiating a chemical reaction that would oxidize the surface and compromise its electronic properties. Molybdenite, on the other hand, can be worked in layers only three atoms thick, making it possible to build chips that are at least three times smaller. At this scale, the material is still very stable and conduction is easy to control."
What makes molybdenite even more attractive is the fact that it is a "relatively abundant, naturally occurring mineral." The researchers said that it can directly compete with silicon as its structure and semiconducting properties make it "an ideal material for transistors." According to Kis, however, molybdenite transistors are more efficient, since they "can be turned on and off much more quickly, and can be put into a more complete standby mode." The researcher said that the material is about as good as silicon for the amplification of electric signals.
So far, the scientists have only built very basic chips with two to six transistors. They now want to build larger chips.
"strawberry flavored cranberries"
Exactly... they even do it in your snack bars.
There is an important distinction between the graphene transistors that we demonstrated, and the transistors used in a CPU. Unlike silicon, ‘graphene does not have an energy gap, and therefore, graphene cannot be “switched off,” resulting in a small on/off ratio.
It will be expensive at first. When it takes off it will get cheaper...
"strawberry flavored cranberries"
Exactly... they even do it in your snack bars.
Well they are, but the whole processor cannot be light. Each 'light transistor' must have a diode and a receiver. Those millions of leds and receivers will take a fair amount of material to control and route power to each one.
I can see the new commercial from "de Beers"; a Diamond is a computer geeks best friend. :-)
And iPods will be sold exclusively thru "Jared" of course.
Graphene was actually first 'thought' (at least by mainstream views) as a silicon replacement.
Realistically, we could have had quantum computers by now in the market.
Consumer grade tech is about 5 to 6 decades behind 'actual' technological progress.
Majority of these 'inventions' are just yet another way to keep recycling same or similar computing methods without having to switch to an entirely new system (one of the issues why they don't want to do it is because software development is abysmal... so even if they put out a quantum computer out into the open today -which they probably can, writing the software for it is a different story).
All of this is yet another method to gear up more money. Nothing else.
Otherwise, we'd be long past this level.
Very insightful observation, my friend. +1